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Time, Technology, and Change: History with LBCC Instructor Scott McAleer

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Inside his office, instructor Scott McAleer displayed the results of his slow exposure camera. When his class talks about photographs as historical documents, he says, he has the class pose. The period style recreation takes seven minutes or more and produces pictures that are “creepy and old-timey looking.” He details some of the trade-offs of technology and we discuss the differing perspectives between journalists, who look constantly at what is happening now and next, and the historian’s world, immersed hundreds of years into the past. “I just don't think of modern events in the same way that I think about the discipline of history. To me, they're separate.” McAleer showed interest in my background and future, though I have no training in history or experience in any of his classes. He also was pleased and eager to share the success story of his former student Sean Kinsey, a graduate, a history major and member of his history co-curricular. Kinsey, he explained, completed a ...
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The Stale Prince: Will Smith's album "Based on a True Story" (Nut Version)

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  While the album might not slap, Will Smith certainly does. At real risk of detailing something, straight away, I would sincerely recommend against wasting your time with, as well as giving more undeserving attention to someone who is thirsty for it, here’s a quick rundown:  “Based on a True Story” is actually a misleading distraction from Smith’s real life assault on comedian Chris Rock at the Oscars award show. After the violence, Smith claimed on live TV that he was called on by God to be “a vessel for love” and called Jada his wife.   This, not the slap, is what surprised Jada– they had been living “completely separate lives” for years. Will Smith described this scenario as a “bad marriage for life,” according to the New York Times. Meanwhile the Washington Post writes Jada had been in a multi year relationship with her son's close friend, which she rebranded an "entanglement" and Will Smith is adamant was a “relationship.” Even Jada’s mom reported about the slap, “...
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Hot Damn: A Journey to Cajun Country (Fred's Lounge in Mamou)

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I’m sweating and it’s only 8 in the morning. The cold beer helps.  It’s winter, but the weather has the effect of donning a wetsuit in a hot car with the windows up. It’s turned my underarms into their own kind of swampland. I am far from alone. In fact, there hangs in the humid air the feeling of a peculiar far-flung family assemblage, or I should say – rendezvous. It's like being surrounded by cousins who are friendly, but so distant as to be unplaceable.  Perhaps they are amenable because there is a vague bond, but no actual shared history, and so no ancient percolating feuds to revisit. Tante Sue, to be sure, will cotton to no mess.  We are strangers, from around the world, snug, swaying, spinning and stomping with some local regulars and for the next few hours we will share something that one would struggle to recreate anywhere else on the globe.  It’s Mamou, Louisiana. North of New Orleans.  This is Fred’s Lounge, only open for a few hours on Saturday morn...
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The Stale Prince: Will Smith's album "Based on a True Story."

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  While the album might not slap, Will Smith certainly does. The best thing I can say about Smith’s new album is the music is neither noteworthy nor objectionable. Being rich affords Smith the ability to buy decent beats. Additionally, the many guest singers are generally appreciated, as they provide a respite until Smith starts rapping again.  A couple of Smith’s previous hits had him on the soundtracks of his own movies to hype himself, using the movie titles in the choruses. If they are good, it is probably because he took an already popular old hit and changed and added words.  He stopped that 20 years ago. Why return to music? Because he is doing PR work for the Will Smith brand. It’s a family business.  The album's existence and its substance is a vanity project. “Whole world against me and it ain't even bothering me." We will see just how easily Smith can let things go. “Living in a world that attacks us. We stay centered with our hearts on axis.” If we learn ...
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Hitting you with knowledge

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I was submerged in thought, stuck in science class, trying to calculate what earthly forces and universal laws mattered in my pre-teenage skull. All I knew was that my guesswork would get the teacher's red pen for cluelessness, so I clenched my paper handout of half answers into a ball and picked up my book.  The scientific tome had the bulk of a tool – or a weapon.  If nothing else, I could use it to fend off a burglar who might sneak through my bedroom window and steal my perfectly corrected homework, when the teacher next asked about it. It had size and heft, but the glossy cover proved slippery.  The balled-up instructions, meanwhile, were so light that when pitched by my friend and supposed study partner, the unsturdy, makeshift baseball took on a strange trajectory to the plate, catching odd breezes that welled up in the classroom. The paper fluttered and fell like a spitball, without, thankfully, any saliva.  I took several unsuccessful swings, studying the pa...
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Preface and possible future

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I plan to improve my interviewing skills. This shouldn't prove too difficult, because I currently have next to no experience, as the prospect of asking strangers questions terrifies me. I worry I will be bothering them.  I can be florid and digressive--for example using words like florid and digressive. I'd like to find a way to keep some of my style and still interest readers and professionals. I know that for most journalism, people want much more direct and concise language. Because currently journalism is in such bad shape in our culture, I believe that perhaps it signals an opportunity. We are awash in lies, scams and propaganda. People spend a great deal of time listening and reading about current events, so it is important to them, even if they say they hate journalists. I really would like to contribute in a way that doesn't further divide this country into two sides by dogmatically politicizing everything, while also telling the truth on basic things that matter.  ...
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